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#WhatWENeed

Full
CRPD Compliance on the Inclusion of persons with psychosocial disabilities

Partners for
reframing from MH to Inclusion, this International Mental Health Week, 2018[1]

Persons with psychosocial disabilities, users and survivors of
psychiatry, people with "mad" identities and other identities
thereof, are herewith calling for support to have our voices amplified through
this International Mental Health Week, 2018 as we gear towards increasing our full and effective participation in communities that are inclusive. We also express our concerns over the spread of the medical model
through the middle and low-income countries importing western models that we
know have failed.

The medical model, proposed by the "Global Mental health
Movement", since the first Lancet issue in 2007, has set ablaze through
Low and Middle Income Countries of the world (LMICs), with its regressive
approach towards mental health and persons with psychosocial disabilities
contrary of the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities
(CRPD). This year, based on the non-compliant work of the Global Mental
health Movement, the "Global MH Ministerial Summit" is being
organized in London during the World Mental Health Week of 2018 by the UK
Government, the WHO, and with several enabling agencies.

To our dismay, summit is being designed and conducted without
participation of persons with psychosocial disabilities and users and survivors
of psychiatry, opposing the very tenet of the CRPD that requires of persons
with disabilities in matters concerning them, which in this case are persons
with psychosocial disabilities. According to their website, a
Lancet paper is promised to be released, which has aroused the ire of the
movement of persons with psychosocial disabilities, their supporters and their
allies, worldwide; but especially in the Low and Middle Income Countries, where
such actions are predicted to have maximum impact.

The
summit, we feel would undo, the significant development that has happened towards
a rights based perspective for persons with psychosocial disabilities by the
Reports from Special Rapporteur (Disabilities), statements from the Special
Rapporteur (Health), the Mental health and human rights report (2018) from
the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the General Comments on
Legal Capacity, Women, Living independently. Most recently, allied UN bodies
have also issued very strong statements supporting moves to realize all human
rights for persons with psychosocial disabilities. All these positive efforts
have also been supported by far reaching policy changes worldwide, on enabling
CRPD compliance.

In a deliberate response to those complex new developments worldwide, a
"Bali Declaration" was issued by TCI Asia Pacific in August,
2018, affirming once again a call to CRPD commitment and reframing mental
health in the direction of Inclusion. The "North driving the
South" phenomenon has evoked strong counter response from TCI AP and
allied organizations (from Africa and Latin America); especially when we
know, that the western model of psychiatry, based on colonial practices
of isolation, and coercion; and offering little more than medication, is afailure. The
Declaration, in expresses alarm at the import of models and the impending
violations in human rights, that needs more universal visibility and advocacy worldwide.

TCI AP is concerned that,
the GMH movement is influencing the world in setting the lowest standard of the
CRPD for persons with psychosocial disabilities. What we need instead is to be engaged in constructive actions of
community development and not medicalisation as the solution. Our movement is
thus creating new and continuing critical messaging, and advocacy with member
states, reiterating our advocacy for full CRPD compliance and
our right to live in the community. We believe that the answers are to be found
in promoting
policies of practices that have inclusion across services, in line with article
19, as core principle, process and outcomes.

Therefore, to counter the detrimental impact of the medical focused
discussions that we see happening at the Global MH Ministerial Summit, TCI
AP, will run an online campaign to have our voices hear from 1st October - 30th November 2018

We invite you to join us to collectively, across regions and boundaries, to express
ourselves at,

You may link the campaign with your programmes for the International MH Week, by keeping us in the loop, so that we can partner with your efforts and synergise.

You may partner with the campaign, by sharing your organisation's name, logo, or let us know how you want to be visible on the public platforms.

Or you may connect on

Twitter

1.Tweet messages on the topic. Do
not forget to add #WhatWENeed @TCIAsia to your messages.

2.We encourage a photo-campaign with
messaging for Twitter which you can Tweet yourself but if you do not have a
twitter account or unable to open one, you may send your photos to us with a
subject line ‘Twitter photo-campaign’

Recently, TCI Asia Pacific spoke with Yeni Rosa Damayanti, Chairperson of the Indonesian Mental Health Association, about her experience with international, regional and national advocacy in human rights for persons with disabilities, the ideologies she aligns herself with and where she sees and hopes to see persons with psychosocial disabilities in the future.

Yeni has many years of experience working on various issues of rights for persons with psychosocial disabilities and her work has not been limited to the mental health sector, often collaborating and engaging with other human rights movements and the cross disability movement. She is also a member of TCI Asia Pacific and has strongly pushed for a paradigm shift in mental health advocacy to move towards the development sector and disability movement. She has considerable experience with advocacy and has been pivotal in changing mental health legislation to be more CRPD compliant and inclusive in Indone…

More than ten years after the publication
of a series of articles published in the Lancet[1]
that heralded in the age of global mental health, a report of The Lancet
Commission on global mental health and sustainable development[2]
was released at the Global Ministerial Mental Health Summit[3]
in London. It seeks to reframe mental health and place global mental health
within the broader framework of the Sustainable Development Goals[4]
suggesting future paths. It is commendable that the leaders of the Movement
for Global Mental Health, many of whom have authored this report, acknowledge
the importance of social determinants of mental health. The continued opposition
to long-term institutionalisation is welcome. Furthermore, the focus on a life
course approach is promising. Most importantly, the report stresses the need to
move beyond just ‘treatment gaps’ and to recognise the importance of Sustainable
Development Goals. It
is important to bear in mi…

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Disclaimer

#WhatWENeed is a worldwide campaign made up of a loose collective of concerned individuals, organizations and movements, especially from the global South (Asia, Pacific, Latin America), to raise a challenge against globalizing psychiatry. It is a contribution to the World Mental Health week of 2018 and will be operational through October - November. It is run on voluntary basis and is not a legal entity or an organization. The campaign is not collaborating, promoting, endorsing or otherwise forwarding the opinions, policies or practices of any collective, organisation or individual. We post focussed articles critiquing global psychiatry and it's institutions through the campaign months.